The eighteenth century was a period in which local families in the Ottoman provinces moved from acting as intermediaries between state and people to governing in practice. The central government's difficulties on the battlefield and in the treasury led it to leave tax collection, troop levies and the maintenance of order increasingly to these families. In Central Anatolia the most striking example of the process is the Çapanoğulları, whose seat was Bozok, today's Yozgat. The family extended its influence to the sanjak of Amasya as well; the administration of Amasya became the stage for a rivalry between the Çapanoğulları and the Canikli family, which rose from the Samsun region. The governorship of the sanjak appears in the records as one of the constantly changing prizes of that contest.

The Origins of the Ayan Institution

Ayan is the plural of the Arabic word ayn, "eye", and describes people who stood out in the eyes of the public through lineage and standing. The institution appeared in the earliest Islamic states and passed to the Ottomans through the Anatolian Seljuk state. In Ottoman documents the word is used in a very broad sense. Local dynasties serving as voivodes, mütesellims, muhassıls, mutasarrıfs and governors were also called ayan, derebey or mütegallibe. Judges, muftis, müderrises, dervish sheikhs, leading tradesmen and merchants, tax farmers, retired kapıkulu soldiers and their children were likewise counted among the ayan, and all of them together were called "a'yân-ı vilâyet".

In the classical period, because institutions did their work, the ayan's influence did not extend beyond the town where they lived. In every city and town one person, chosen from among the a'yân-ı vilâyet and known as the chief ayan, reîs-i a'yân or official ayan, represented the public before the state and the state before the public. He met the needs of his locality, handled the administration and supervision of pious foundations, set the prices of goods, acted as an expert witness, fixed when certain taxes would be collected, and conveyed the townspeople's requests to Istanbul for the dismissal of bad officials. Governors and judges regarded the chief ayan as their counterpart in any matter concerning a district.

From the second half of the sixteenth century, as flaws appeared in administration and order, the ayan grew in importance. Kapıkulu soldiers and retired members of the military class who spread into Anatolia after 1559 grew rich through murabaha lending and tax farming and joined the ayan. By taking part in tax farms and lending to farmers, the ayan enlarged their wealth and land and made indebted villagers dependent on themselves. Their support for the people against oppressive officials during the suhte and levend rebellions also made them a refuge for peasants seeking protection. When the timars left empty by the Celali rebellions of the seventeenth century and the neglect of the timariot cavalry were handed over to tax farming, the ayan, as tax farmers, came to rule the peasantry almost entirely; farmers who abandoned their land and levends took refuge with them, so they gained strength in both the working and the fighting population. The appointment of local ayan as voivodes and mütesellims in lands granted as paşmaklık and arpalık added administrative authority to this.

Malikâne, Wars and the Rise of Dynasties

The granting of certain mukataas by the malikâne method, for life, from 1695 onwards to relieve the financial strain caused by the Second Siege of Vienna, which began in 1683, proved decisive for the growth of the ayan. The practice secured control of local revenue sources and the right to benefit from them, and often allowed them to be passed on by inheritance. Defeats at the front and financial crises between 1683 and 1718 also made the ayan, who collected taxes and lent money to the treasury, more valuable. From the eighteenth century the ayan also began to serve in wars; after 1726, during the Iranian wars, they were appointed as beylerbeys and sanjak governors, and in this way passed from the reaya to the military class and lost their ayan status.

Toward the middle of the eighteenth century the center's strength in the provinces declined, and when one ayan family governed continuously in its own region, great families with the character of dynasties emerged. Their duties included supplying goods needed by the city and the guilds, fixing the prices of provisions and raw materials, building and repairing public buildings, catching bandits, providing the army with troops and animals, sending provisions and sheep to Istanbul, meeting the gunpowder works' need for saltpeter, and collecting taxes. Because the center was weak, these families often looked after their own interests as well, rightly or wrongly, while carrying out their duties. The Tuzcuoğulları became known around Rize, Canikli Hacı Ali Pasha and his sons around Samsun, the Çapanoğulları in the Yozgat region, the Zennecizâdes in Kayseri, the Müderriszâdes in Ankara, the Karaosmanoğulları in Manisa, Pazvandoğlu in Vidin, and Tepedelenli Ali Pasha and his sons in Ioannina.

Ayan Elections and Intervention by the Center

According to documents, ayan elections were first held in the 1680s. A winning candidate had to obtain a mahzar from the people, an ilâm from the judge and a buyruldu from the governor; a fee called "âyâniye" was paid for the buyruldu. There is no certain information on the duration and rules of the elections or on who the voters were, since no regulation exists; sources name as voters only the people, only the provincial ayan, or both. In time, governors began to exploit the rivalry among notables for the post of reîs-i a'yân and issued buyruldus in return for bribes, and the center had to intervene.

The first intervention came in April 1765 from Grand Vizier Muhsinzâde Mehmed Pasha; governors were forbidden to issue buyruldus and the candidate's standing was to be investigated by the grand vizier. During the Russian war of 1768-1774, because replacing a deceased ayan took long, a system based on election by the people was adopted in January 1769. When bribery and ayan quarrels continued, the 1765 practice was restored in April 1779, and in May 1784 it was ruled again that no one could become reîs-i a'yân without the grand vizier's letter. When the conflicts turned bloody, the Porte abolished the ayanship in 1786 and introduced the city kethüdâ in its place. The kethüdâs were not as strong or respected as the ayan and could not enforce orders; after failures in the preparations for the Russian war of 1787, it was decided in November 1790 that the ayan of each district, chosen by the people, would be appointed by hüccet-i şer'iyye, that governors would not interfere, and that the judge would take no fee for the hüccet.

Origins and Rise of the Çapanoğulları

The family, also known as Cebbarzâdes, Çaparzâdes and Çaparoğulları, probably settled in the sanjak of Bozok in the mid-seventeenth century. Belonging to the Mamalu Turkmens, the family's oldest known ancestor is Ömer Ağa, who died in 1704; Çapar Ömer Ağa's only known son was Ahmed Ağa. Ahmed Ağa appears as voivode of the Yeni İl has in 1728, was appointed voivode of the Mamalu Turkmens in 1732 in return for successful service, and later voivode of the sanjak of Bozok. He is said to have bound the local people to himself by making no distinction of religion or sect, to have got on well with the Porte, to have kept order in the region, and to have sent meat to Istanbul and troops and grain to the front when needed. These services made it easier for him to establish superiority over neighboring ayan and enabled the appointment of his son Mustafa as mütesellim of the sanjak of Bozok in 1729 and as its voivode in 1736.

Ahmed Ağa received the rank of kapıcıbaşı in 1745, and when the voivodeship of Bozok was granted to him as malikâne in 1755 he became the undisputed master of the region. For a time he also held the voivodeship of Tokat, received the Yeni İl voivodeship as malikâne in 1758, and in 1761 became governor of Sivas with the rank of mîrimîran. Because of mistakes he made and the efforts of his enemies he was dismissed the next year; when he was found innocent, the sanjak of Bozok was returned to him in 1763, Çorum was given as arpalık, and Niğde was added in the same way in 1764. As his standing in Istanbul grew he began to oppress the local population again and went as far as asking for the governorship of Maraş. The central government reacted harshly, and Çapanoğlu Ahmed Pasha was executed in 1765. His property was confiscated and the Bozok and Mamalu malikânes were taken back, but because his other possessions were left to his children, the family's financial strength continued.

The family's administrative influence reappeared around 1768. The Mamalu malikâne had been given to Ahmed Pasha's sons Mustafa and Süleyman, and in early 1768 the mütesellimship of Bozok passed to the elder brother, Mustafa Bey. Mustafa Bey allowed no room to the levends and tribes who tried to disturb order in the region and received the title of kapıcıbaşı the same year. His loyalty to the Porte in the Ottoman-Russian war of 1768-1774 won the government's favor; his brother Selim Bey was made mütesellim of Sivas in 1769-1770, and in 1771 the post was given to Mustafa Bey on condition that he keep order. In 1773 Mustafa Bey became mütesellim of the sanjak of Kayseri, and in 1774 his son Ali Rızâ Bey and his brother Süleyman Bey were rewarded with the rank of kapıcıbaşı. In 1775 Mustafa Bey became mîrâhûr-ı sânî and mütesellim of the sanjak of Çankırı, and after serving as surre emini he took the title of hajji.

Rivalry with the Caniklis over Amasya

Amasya's place in this story is directly tied to the family of Canikli Hacı Ali Pasha, which rose from the Samsun and Canik region. Hacı Ali Pasha was born in Istanbul in 1720-21; his father, Fatsalı Ahmed Ağa, was a kapıcıbaşı. He became muhassıl of Canik in 1762 and cleared the Samsun and Amasya region of bandits. On 30 May 1772 the sanjak of Amasya was granted to him as malikâne, followed by the voivodeship of Tokat and the title of kapıcıbaşı. The Caniklis' spread from the Black Sea coast toward the interior worked against the Çapanoğulları; the first traces of the rivalry between the two families are found in 1772, when Amasya and then Sivas were given to the Caniklis. Regarding these places as his own sphere of influence, Çapanoğlu Mustafa Bey withheld the help Hacı Ali Pasha asked for during his Iranian and Crimean commands and worked to bring about his fall from the Porte's favor.

In 1778, when Hacı Ali Pasha became governor of Erzurum, the governorship of Sivas went with the rank of vizier to his younger son Mikdad Ahmed Pasha, then only eighteen, and the sanjak of Çorum to his nephew Mehmed Bey. With these appointments the sanjak of Çankırı, within the Çapanoğulları' sphere, was being encircled by the Caniklis. Hacı Ali Pasha's failure in his last Crimean campaign, complaints that he was increasing his fortune unjustly by tormenting the people, and his falling out with Çapanoğlu Mustafa Bey caused discontent in Istanbul. Unable to endure the pressure of Mikdad Ahmed Pasha, the ayan of Amasya took refuge with Çapanoğlu Mustafa Bey in late 1778. Thereupon the government removed Hacı Ali Pasha from the governorship of Sivas in early 1779, transferred him to Trabzon, and ordered him to return the property he had unjustly seized to its owners.

Taking advantage of the situation, Mustafa Bey sent Mikdad Ahmed Pasha a letter in mid-1779 stating that he must obey the Porte's order. Mikdad Ahmed, a pasha with the rank of vizier, reacted harshly to this intervention by a sanjak mutasarrıf of lower rank, attacked the Çapanoğlu lands and was defeated. Amasya passed into the hands of Çapanoğlu Mustafa Bey. Hacı Ali Pasha applied to Istanbul asking that Çapanoğlu be executed, otherwise he would punish him himself, but the Porte took the side of the Çapanoğulları in this struggle. Hacı Ali Pasha and his son Battal Hüseyin Bey fled to Crimea, and Mikdad Ahmed Pasha was detained in Bursa. After Sivas Governor İzzet Mehmed Pasha was brought to the grand vizierate for the second time on 20 February 1781, the Caniklis were pardoned in September of the same year, in order to correct the balance around Canik that had tilted in the Çapanoğulları' favor. Mikdad Ahmed Pasha was given the governorship of Erzurum together with the sanjak of Amasya as arpalık, and the two families became neighbors again. This time Hacı Ali Pasha acted cautiously: he won over some of Mustafa Bey's slaves and through them had Çapanoğlu Mustafa Bey killed in April 1782.

The Era of Süleyman Bey

On Mustafa Bey's death the mutasarrıflık of Bozok was given to his brother Süleyman Bey, and the family's most brilliant period, which would last about thirty years, began. Süleyman Bey followed a clever, cautious policy that was generally obedient to the Porte. His influence spread beyond Bozok to Çankırı, Amasya, Şebinkarahisar, Kayseri, Aleppo, Adana, Tarsus, Konya Ereğli, Niğde, Kırşehir and Ankara; it was felt in Çorum, Maraş, Aintab and Raqqa. His support for Selim III's Nizam-ı Cedid movement and his marriage ties with ayan such as the Köse Paşa dynasty, which dominated the Divriği region, also helped this expansion. Seen as voivode of the Yeni İl has from 1783, Süleyman Bey sent a thousand soldiers in 1786 to the army dispatched to suppress the disorder in Egypt, and these efforts won him the mutasarrıflık of Çankırı in 1787 and the mütesellimship of Ankara a year later.

In the wars of 1787-1792 he sent troops and grain to the front, went to the Rumelian front with four thousand soldiers in 1790, and took part in campaigns in person the next year. In return for these services the Porte granted him the high rank of mîrâhur and a robe of honor in 1790 and his eldest son Abdülfettah the rank of kapıcıbaşı; in 1791 the muhassıllık of the sanjak of Amasya was also bestowed on him with a fur, and he held it until 1793. In 1794 he obtained the trusteeship of the Bereketli and Bozkır mines and the mütesellimships of Adana and Tarsus for his associates. In those same years he is seen to have shown disobedience at times, but when the Bereketli mine was taken from him in 1798 he became obedient again. Against the Pazvandoğlu rebellion in Rumelia and the French occupation of Egypt he sent troops on the center's orders and suppressed disorder around his own region.

The Events of 1805 and the Sanjak of Amasya

From 1793 Süleyman Bey took part in collecting the irad-ı cedid taxes that formed the financial base of the Nizam-ı Cedid army, and worked for the army's settlement in Anatolia, the increase in its numbers and the building of barracks. In early 1805 Selim III gave him the mütesellimship of the sanjak of Amasya on condition that he establish the Nizam-ı Cedid organization. The same year the governorship of Sivas, which Tayyar Mahmud Pasha, grandson of Canikli Hacı Ali Pasha, had asked for two years earlier without obtaining it, was granted with the rank of vizier to Süleyman Bey's son Mehmed Celâleddin Pasha. Tayyar Mahmud Pasha reacted by gathering troops; to keep the matter from growing, the sultan took the sanjak of Amasya back from Süleyman Bey, and Süleyman Bey respected the decision.

Tayyar Mahmud Pasha was still not appeased. Swayed by the incitement of opponents of the Nizam-ı Cedid in Istanbul, among them Prince Mustafa, he declared he would abolish the irad-ı cedid and in June 1805 occupied first Amasya and then Tokat and Zile, which lay within the Çapanoğulları' sphere. The Çapanoğlu forces had to respond, and the Porte declared Tayyar Mahmud Pasha an outlaw by ferman. The defeated pasha fled to Crimea by way of Sukhumi, and Süleyman Bey regained the sanjak of Amasya in August. It has also been claimed that the pasha received money and weapons from Russia.

The Kabakçı Mustafa rebellion of May 1807 ended the Nizam-ı Cedid and Selim III was deposed. The new administration took the sanjak of Amasya back from Süleyman Bey, who had supported the Nizam-ı Cedid, and moved his son Mehmed Celâleddin Pasha from Sivas to Diyarbekir; by contrast Tayyar Mahmud Pasha, who had opposed the Nizam-ı Cedid, was pardoned and appointed to the governorship of Trabzon and the sanjaks of Canik and Şebinkarahisar, and soon received the rank of sadaret kaymakamı. After Mahmud II came to the throne in July 1808, Tayyar Mahmud Pasha was executed, and the Canikli family's intermittent dominance in northeastern Anatolia came to an end. In October of the same year Süleyman Bey attended the meeting of ayan convened by Alemdar Mustafa Pasha and signed the Deed of Agreement; he then set about founding sekban-ı cedid units in his region and sent troops to the Russian war. In that war his son Mehmed Celâleddin Pasha, governor of Sivas, was taken prisoner by the Russians. Süleyman Bey obtained the voivodeship of Şebinkarahisar in 1808, the mütesellimship of Kayseri in 1810 and that of Kırşehir in 1811.

Centralization and Decline

Alemdar Mustafa Pasha entered history as the only ayan to rise to the grand vizierate. Through the Deed of Agreement he tried to give the ayan's position a legal character, but most ayan had not signed the document and those who did lacked the awareness to protect class interests. In the janissary uprising of 16 November 1808 Alemdar Mustafa Pasha was killed and the document became void. Mahmud II had not forgotten the ayan's role in the end of the Nizam-ı Cedid and in the preparation of the Deed of Agreement, and turned to a policy of centralization. He sent armies against rebellious ayan and sometimes set them against each other; against those who were obedient and strong he used no force, waited for their deaths, and appointed the Porte's representatives in place of their heirs.

The Çapanoğulları are a typical example of this policy. When Süleyman Bey died in 1813, Mahmud II gave the sanjak of Bozok to no member of the family. He had Abdülfettah Efendi, Abbas Hilmi, Mahmud, Hamza and İzzet Beys brought to Istanbul and kept them under watch. He kept Mehmed Celâleddin Pasha, who seemed the strongest candidate for Bozok, far from Yozgat with posts such as Maraş, Erzurum, Karaman, Adana and Raqqa; holding him responsible for the fall of Yenikale in the Russian war of 1828-1829, he removed his vizierate and exiled him to Tekirdağ with the rank of kapıcıbaşı. Tanzimat administrators also generally assigned the family outside Yozgat: Abbas Hilmi Pasha was appointed muhassıl of Karesi in 1846 and mutasarrıf of Sivas in 1847 and died in 1859, and Mahmud Bey became kaymakam of Tripoli in Syria in 1847. The center saw no harm in leaving family members, who no longer had the strength to endanger its hold on Bozok, in Yozgat, and exiled those who caused unrest. The family lost its political influence, but its weight continued thanks to the fortune Süleyman Bey left.

The end of the ayanship in general came in a similar way. In the Tanzimat period the ayan's duties were transferred to the newly founded institutions, and the Porte ended the official ayanship by not appointing a successor when an ayan died. Persons known as ayan nevertheless continued their influence by joining the provincial, district and township administrative councils as local representatives; the Land Code regulation of 1847 and the Land Law of 1858 allowed them to become owners of the land they held.

Building and Endowment Activity

The Çapanoğulları devoted part of their wealth to the development of the places under their rule and to pious foundations. Ahmed Ağa had a mosque built in 1749 in the village of Saray near Yozgat and, four years later, a madrasa in Yozgat, and assigned endowments to them. His eldest son Hacı Mustafa Bey built in 1779 in Yozgat the domed mosque known as the Câmi-i Kebîr or Çapanoğlu Mosque; to this work, built in a Baroque style resembling the Ayazma and Nuruosmaniye mosques in Istanbul, he added a fountain and a tomb in 1780 and drew up a deed of endowment. Thanks to the eighty shops and the inn he assigned to the foundation, Yozgat developed into an administrative and commercial center. Süleyman Bey enlarged the mosque and built a school, a bath and a mansion; the foundation he established in 1793 included about sixty shops and a bath. Süleyman Bey's eldest son Abdülfettah Efendi (d. 1840) added thirty-two shops and a bakery to his father's endowments, rebuilt the Câmi-i Kebîr in Çorum and its adjoining madrasa, which had been destroyed in an earthquake, and gave 10,000 gold coins in aid to the state in the war of 1828-1829. The Şâhruh Bey Mosque in Gemerek was also repaired by the Çapanoğulları in 1822. The Canikli family's tie to Amasya also appears in endowments: Mikdad Ahmed Pasha has foundations in Amasya and its surroundings.

Later Generations and the 1920 Uprising

In the last period of the empire two sons of Ömer Hulûsi Efendi came to the fore. Âgâh Efendi (d. 1885) holds an important place in Turkish postal and press history; he served as director of the Imperial Post (1861), as mutasarrıf of İzmit in 1872 and 1876, as mutasarrıf of Rhodes and Mytilene in 1884-1885 and as envoy to Athens. Field Marshal Şakir Pasha (d. 1899), after graduating from the Military Academy in 1858, served as mutasarrıf of Rusçuk, Baghdad and Herzegovina, as ambassador in Petersburg, as acting governor of Crete and as inspector general for Anatolian reform.

The event that ended the family's social and economic influence was the Yozgat uprising they launched against the Grand National Assembly government during the National Struggle. The ringleaders were Edib, Celâl and Hâlid Beys, sons of Hacı Osman Nûri Bey and third-generation descendants of Süleyman Bey. Edib and Celâl Beys had served as kaymakam, deputy and mutasarrıf in the Second Constitutional period and were dismissed for opposing the Committee of Union and Progress; Edib Bey joined the Freedom and Accord Party. Propaganda that the National Struggle was a Unionist movement, together with the role of local rivals, led the family to stand against the Kuva-yi Milliye. The delegation sent by Ankara could not persuade the brothers, and on 7 June 1920 Colonel İsmet Bey ordered Colonel Selâhaddin Bey, commander of the Third Army Corps in Sivas, to arrest them. The brothers left Yozgat on 8 June, gathered men, and took Yozgat on 14 June. The Kuva-yi Seyyâre under Çerkez Ethem Bey, sent by the Ankara government, entered Yozgat on 23 June and the uprising was put down quickly. On 24 June Ethem Bey had twelve rebels executed by a court-martial, among them Çapanoğlu Mahmud and Vâsıf Beys. Hâlid Bey was caught later, sentenced to death by the Amasya Independence Tribunal and hanged. Yusuf Ziya Bey fled to Syria; Edib and Celâl Beys were pardoned in 1921 and exiled to Istanbul, and Sâlih Bey, who had not taken part, was not prosecuted. The Çapanoğlu mansion in Yozgat was plundered and demolished, and the family's influence of about two centuries came to an end. Münir Süleyman Çapanoğlu (d. 1973), a well-known writer and journalist of the Republican period, also came from this family. The Çapanoğulları also became the subject of poems, folk songs, legends, stories, anecdotes and idioms in folk literature.

Chronology

1695: Mukataas begin to be granted for life by the malikâne method.

1704: Ömer Ağa, the oldest known ancestor of the Çapanoğulları, dies.

1732: Ahmed Ağa is appointed voivode of the Mamalu Turkmens.

1761-1765: Ahmed Ağa becomes governor of Sivas, is dismissed, and is executed in 1765.

1765: Muhsinzâde Mehmed Pasha makes the first intervention in ayan elections.

1772: The sanjak of Amasya is granted to Canikli Hacı Ali Pasha as malikâne.

1779: Mikdad Ahmed Pasha attacks the Çapanoğlu lands and is defeated; Amasya passes to Mustafa Bey.

1781: The Caniklis are pardoned and the sanjak of Amasya becomes Mikdad Ahmed Pasha's arpalık.

1782: Çapanoğlu Mustafa Bey is killed and Süleyman Bey becomes mutasarrıf of Bozok.

1786: The Porte abolishes the ayanship and introduces the city kethüdâ.

1790: It is decided that ayan chosen by the people be appointed by hüccet-i şer'iyye.

1791-1793: Süleyman Bey is muhassıl of the sanjak of Amasya.

1805: The sanjak of Amasya is first given to Süleyman Bey, taken back, and regained in August after Tayyar Mahmud Pasha's occupation.

1807: The Kabakçı Mustafa rebellion; the sanjak of Amasya is taken from Süleyman Bey.

1808: The Deed of Agreement is signed and Tayyar Mahmud Pasha is executed.

1813: Süleyman Bey dies; Mahmud II does not give the sanjak of Bozok to the Çapanoğulları.

1920: The Yozgat uprising is suppressed.

Sources

Academic studies

Other sources

  • Özcan Mert, XVIII. ve XIX. Yüzyıllarda Çapanoğulları, Ankara 1980.
  • Süleyman Duygu, Yozgat Tarihi ve Çapanoğulları, İstanbul 1953.
  • Yücel Özkaya, Osmanlı İmparatorluğunda Âyânlık, Ankara 1977.
  • https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Çapanoğlu_Oymağı

Online sources